Core Members

Matthew Elvidge Trust

Hamish ElvidgeChair, Matthew Elvidge Trust

Hamish Elvidge is chair of The Matthew Elvidge Trust, which was formed after his son, Matthew took his own life, aged 23 after a very short period of anxiety and depression. The Trust aims to increase everyone’s understanding of the importance of good emotional wellbeing and mental health and ensure people seek and receive the right professional support. He is a member of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Board and co-chair of the National Suicide Prevention Alliance and The Alliance of Suicide Prevention Charities (TASC).

Charlie Waller Memorial Trust

Clare StaffordCEO, Charlie Waller Memorial Trust

Clare is a senior manager with a background in the NHS and voluntary sector. Her previous roles have included commissioning and providing services in both mental health and learning disability and improving access to services for diverse cultural and ethnic populations. In 2004 Clare became the Programme Manager for a Department of Health funded project to establish community personality disorder services in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. This involved scoping needs, developing a clinical and service model, recruiting staff and working with service users. In 2008 Clare was offered a secondment to the Department of Health as a Senior Policy Advisor for the National Personality Disorder Programme. This involved giving Ministerial briefings and advice and developing national policy in relation to personality disorder, both within the NHS and the Criminal Justice System. In July 2010 Clare returned to Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and worked with Healthy Minds in Buckinghamshire and Talking Space in Oxfordshire (both are ‘Improving Access to Psychological Thearpies’ services). A focus of this work was to develop specific services for people with long term conditions and medically unexplained symptoms via two Department of Health funded ‘Pathfinder’ projects. Both of these projects demonstrated excellent outcomes for patients and were highly commended at the HSJ Care Integration Awards 2013. Alongside this work Clare was also involved in developing a new approach to psychological medicine provision, managed a chronic fatigue service in Oxfordshire and had a brief role in services for Older People, including involvement in a project to make improvements to the built environment for people with dementia. Clare has been the CEO of the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust since May 2014.

James Wentworth-Stanley Memorial Fund

Clare Milford Haven is a Trustee and Co–Founder of the James Wentworth-Stanley Memorial Fund (JWSMF) – a UK based charity set up in 2008 following the death of Clare’s eldest son, James. The charity aims to help raise awareness of anxiety, depression and suicide amongst young people and to provide preventative measures to tackle this single biggest killer of young men in the UK. Clare is also co-chair of TASC (The Alliance of Suicide Prevention Charities) and is a member of the Advisory Group to the Government’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy for England which was launched in September 2012. Clare lives on a farm in Hampshire with her husband George and their four children. She has been freelance writing for the past 20 years, including an eight year stint as Tatler’s Social Editor. She is a keen and competitive international polo player and represents Swiss watch manufacturer Jaeger-LeCoultre as their Brand Ambassador on and off the polo field.

Nightline Association

Brendan MahonChair of Trustees, Nightline Association

Brendan Mahon is the Chair of Trustees for the Nightline Association, which promotes, supports and develops student-run Nightlines at universities across the UK and Ireland, supporting over 1.25 million students.

He was previously coordinator of Nightline at the University of Nottingham and is now a PhD student at the University of Cambridge, where he researches and teaches atmospheric chemistry.

Mags GodderidgeCharity Development Manager, Nightline Association

Mags Godderidge is Charity Development Manager at Nightline Association, the charity which promotes, supports and develops student-run Nightlines at universities across the UK and Ireland.

Following 10 years in advertising and marketing roles in the retail sector Mags moved to the charity sector before returning to university full-time to study psychology. She completed her MSc in Applied Forensic Psychology before joining Nightline Association in 2013 on a two-year contract funded by Comic Relief.

Open Minds

OpenMinds is a programme to train medical students to deliver workshops to secondary school students about mental health problems. The programme aims to increase knowledge about mental health, improve help seeking behaviours and reduce stigma associated with mental illness. The programme comprises three parts. The first part involves medical students learning about various mental illnesses through psychiatrist-led seminars and group work. Medical students then receive training to develop classroom skills in order to communicate information about mental health to secondary school students. The final part involves students designing and delivering workshops on mental health in secondary schools. Workshops are intended to be interactive and informative, covering mental illnesses relevant to adolescents, such as anxiety, self-harm and eating disorders. OpenMinds was designed and is led by medical students and funded by the James Wentworth-Stanley Memorial Fund. It began at University College London, and is now running at various universities across London and Birmingham. Please contact us at uclopenminds@gmail.com for further information.

Student Minds

Nicola ByromFounding Chair, Student Minds

Dr Nicola Byrom is the Founding Director of Student Minds. She is an academic psychologist, currently working at Oxford University combining a research agenda with teaching. Nicola currently teaches at St John's and Somerville College. Her research interests are in mental health and she approaches this using a variety of methods; she works with constructionist models of human learning and memory with the goal of modelling how mental health difficulties may relate to changes in cognition. Nicola has also supported a range of research at Student Minds, investigating the application of community mental health interventions. Oxford University has recognised Dr Byrom's support of Student Minds, awarding her with the Vice Chancellors Award for Civic Service and inviting her to represent the university in the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay. Nicola's involvement with Student Minds was inspired by her own experiences with depression, self harm and an eating disorder in her teenage years.

Rosie TresslerCEO, Student Minds

Rosie Tressler is the Networks and Projects Manager at Student Minds, responsible for the development and delivery of all Student Minds projects, campaigns and managing relationships with our university network and additional stakeholders. In recent years, Rosie was the University of Nottingham Student Union's Equal Opportunities and Welfare Officer and worked as Mental Wealth UK's Development Officer. She joined the Student Minds team in October 2013, following the merger of Mental Wealth UK and Student Minds. On the Alliance, Rosie is leading a research project scoping out the concept of a 'Quality Framework' for student mental health.

Students Against Depression

Jeremy ChristeyProject Director, Students Against Depression

Jeremy Christey has a wide range of clinical trainings, he is a Counsellor, Counselling Psychologist and CBT Therapist and is also involved in running therapy services, specialising in working with younger people.

He started working in the voluntary sector in the 1980s and went to work as a specialist HIV clinician in the NHS when the disease first arrived in the UK and then went on to work in both Primary and Secondary care services, as well as teaching NHS CBT Therapists.

He has been asked onto the Alliance as the incoming Project Director of the Students Against Depression, and he is also the Chair of the University and Colleges Division of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).

He works at the University of Sussex Student Counselling Service and runs a private clinical service.

University of Worcester

Professor Jo SmithProject Lead, 'Suicide Safer' Project

Professor Jo Smith is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Early Intervention (EI) Lead with Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust and a Visiting Professor in Early Intervention and Psychosis with University of Worcester, UK. Jo was a joint national EI in Psychosis Lead with the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) supporting the development of Early Intervention in Psychosis services across England. Jo is currently the project lead for a multiagency, phased, suicide prevention initiative led by the University of Worcester to create a 'Suicide Safer' University, City and County. She is also an advisor to and member of The Alliance of Suicide Charities (TASC) in the UK.

Advisers

AMOSSHE

MWBHE

Ruth CalebChair, Mental Wellbeing In Higher Education

Dr Ruth Caleb has over 25 years’ experience as a counsellor and psychotherapist in a wide variety of settings. For the last 25 years, she has specialised in university counselling, and for the past 15 years has been Head of Counselling at Brunel University. She is currently Chair of the Mental Wellbeing in Higher Education (MWBHE) Working Group.

HUCS

Géraldine Dufour is the chair of HUCS, a special interest group of BACP Universities and Colleges, where she also sits on the executive committee.As the Head of Counselling at the University of Cambridge, she oversees the provision of psychological support for the collegiate university, leading a large team of counsellors, CBT therapists, mindfulness teachers and mental health advisors.Géraldine started her career working in social care, moving on to counselling drug and alcohol users, sexual abuse survivors and young people.

UMHAN

Lydia PellChair, University Mental Health Advisers Network

Lydia Pell is the current Chair of the University Mental Health Advisors Network (UMHAN). She is also the Mental Health Co-ordinator within the Student Counselling and Mental Health Service at City University London. She has worked within FE and HE as a mental health advisor since 2009. Previously she has worked in emotional and behavioural support in secondary schools, as an Art Psychotherapist in psychiatric settings, and youth drug services. She is a champion of user led initiatives, including peer led support, and strives to work with students to achieve their potential and to challenge stigma and barriers along the way.